Wherein, Hat reviews all the 7" class tablets he's used

A tablet is rated in five major areas, each area contributing to the final score. A major flaw in one area will result in no score for it.

HARDWARE - How high spec is it? Will it last? Is it well built? Instant fails for storage less than 8 GB or a screen less than 1280x800.SOFTWARE - How good to use, how flexible, how good as a tablet is the software and user experience?PRICE - Is it a good price?PERFORMANCE - Does it run well? Is it a smooth experience without juddering or bugs?FEEL - That subjective thing where you like it or you don't.

Barnes & Noble Nook HDThe Nook HD runs its own customised interface, which is very simple to do the most common things with, and with a "curated" app store.

In reality, it's a very deficient app store, a clumsy and slow interface and the device has numerous performance problems. Using it is arduous, it seems to lag on each touch, making some games unplayable and web browsing is juddery. Its speakers are the most dire yet seen on a tablet, so take along headphones.

The good about this device is that it feels good to hold, the rubberised back is pleasant and the display is extremely sharp - it will do a better job of all HD content than any other 7" tablet today. Its glossy finish does reflect more than it needs to, you'll be seeing more of your face than of your tablet on a bright day.

B&N clearly pitches this as a content device, for movies and books, but we expect so much more these days.

If you're the type who goes straight for root and custom firmware, the Nook HD may be the best of the bunch if you can get a good AOSP-derived Jellybean on it, such as CyanogenMod 10.1 but as it stands, it's quite clearly the worst: Excellent hardware marred by such a poor and limited user experience.

RATING: 2/5 (PRICE and HARDWARE) - The excellent screen and solid feel is let down by senseless OS customisation which limits its potential as a general-purpose tablet.

Google Nexus 7Out of the gate at £159 for the 16 GB version, the Nexus 7 is Google's own pride and joy and as a Nexus series device, it's top of the line. It began life as the Asus ME370T, Google saw it, liked it, asked Asus to modify it a bit to bring it worthy of the Nexus name. What we get is nothing short of exceptional.

The stock Android 4.1 or 4.2 (the earlier OS will upgrade automatically) is smooth, fluid and intuitive. Holding the tablet is comfortable and the screen richly detailed, while the lack of any front buttons makes its design attractive and clean.

Android 4.2 gives you Google Now, a freakily accurate personal assistant which gives you information it thinks you'll need. Within two days, it worked out where I live and where I work, and began alerting me about traffic conditions. Inside a week, it had saved me from being late to work. It picked up that I had an appointment with a certain company and then, from a Google Maps search I did for that company the previous day, sent me a high priority notification saying that there were roadworks along my route and I should set off within 10 minutes to make my appointment. It had, on its own, worked out where I wanted to be, calculated a route, and warned me of traffic conditions. To say I was floored would be an understatement: I was used to Apple's Siri, which is no more than a voice user interface, it doesn't have much smarts of its own. Google Now has the smarts, and it will prove invaluable.

Negatives are scarce. The speakers sound a bit tinny, but all tablet speakers do (even the Kindle Fire HD's Dolby-enhanced sound isn't "good" by any means) and maybe it's a bit on the heavy side. I'm really trying here, cut me some slack!

For a general use tablet that can do it all, Google has delivered a solid option at an extremely attractive price with a premium build quality. Right now, it is impossible to get more tablet for the money. It's impossible to get more tablet for double the money (you can get two 16 GB Nexus 7s for the price of one iPad Mini 32 GB).

Google didn't just create Android's first solid alternative to the iPad, it delivered a better device than Apple's rather cynical attempt, at a much lower price point, at a premium quality with better hardware inside. Nice one, Google.

RATING: 5/5 (Scored in ALL AREAS) - I cannot find fault with it. It does everything you ask it to, reliably, smoothly and quickly.

Apple iPad MiniThe iPad Mini stunned some observers when released in late 2012. It is, without apology, an iPad 2 (the refreshed model) shrunk down a little bit. Same low resolution screen. Same 4:3 aspect ratio. Same processor. Same memory. Same storage. Now this was great back in 2010, but this is now 2013 and the iPad Mini was released in 2012 - the thing is ancient.

It lacks Apple's gorgeous "Retina" (TM) display density, it lacks the high end hardware power we expect from new Apple devices. It uses last-generation parts, last-generation's display technology and it has last-generation's performance. While this makes it very cheap to make, it cannot help feeling like a cheap knock-off intended to do nothing more than get a few sales in the 7" tablet market; It certainly saw no real design, the base hardware is a plain old iPad 2 - or iPod Touch, if you want to look at it like that. All three devices share the same basic hardware.

The iPad Mini shares the Nexus 7's premium quality construction, although the iPad is in an aluminium chassis. There are pros and cons to both, the Nexus 7's rubberised plastic is better to hold, but the iPad's clean aluminium looks better. I'd be far more willing to toss the Nexus 7 in a holdall and go with it than I would the iPad, you certainly need a protective cover for the iPad, it feels at times quite fragile.

iOS 6 does lag a little at times, maybe the Mini's anaemic 512 MB memory is showing its age a little but otherwise it rates just like an iPad 2 would - Out of date and underpowered.

RATING: 3/5 (SOFTWARE, FEEL and PERFORMANCE) - If only Apple had seen fit to give it a decently sharp screen, this would have been 4. Were its price sensible also, it'd have been 5, as these are the disadvantages it has against a device which does get 5

Kindle Fire HD

The original Kindle was - and is - the e-reader to beat. Its power-frugal E-Paper screen and simple, minimal UI as well as low weight and robust construction make it an unbeaten reading device, but the Kindle Fire HD is Amazon's attempt to sell movies as well as books - it's best compared with the Nook HD.

Like the Nook HD, it doesn't come with a proper app store, but Amazon's own. This is not quite as limited as B&N's, but it's not far ahead. Google Play and Apple's App Store are entire astronomical units out front. The UI is based on Android 4.0, so Google's "Project Butter" goodness as seen in the Nexus 7 is entirely absent. Jerky UI transistions and the occasional spot of unresponsiveness do occasionally mar Amazon's attempt, but nowhere near as badly as the Nook HD.

Its weight is, well, a bit hefty. You'll probably not want to be holding it for too long, certainly not the 2 hours or so of a movie. Invest in some kind of stand if this is your intended use, for which it is not a bad tablet. The Dolby-enhanced audio sounds... well, acceptable. Speakers of this size aren't going to be great, but it beats every other tablet on test.

RATING: 3/5 - Scores in HARDWARE, PERFORMANCE and PRICE. A powerful tablet held back just like the Nook, the meaningless restrictions placed on it by Amazon's customised interface.

Kurio 7

Aimed at kids, this is an Android 4.0 tablet at a very low price, just £129 in some places and with an MSRP of £149. Is it any good? Well, what happens when someone tries "customising" Android? Yep, they make a mess of it.

The software has a locked down white-list based browser, which for some reason denied access to Nickelodeon's kids site. It has parental controls for operation time, wifi times and its own tiny little "curated" app store which has about four apps. It's not particularly tuned for kids, the interface is senseless in places and overly complex in others: It's more designed to limit what they can do with it.

The hardware is... I feel ashamed to even give it its own section... It's abysmal. I mean, it's awful. Terrible. Horrendous. A single core processor, an embarrassingly low resolution screen, only 4 GB storage and somehow it still manages to weigh more than the Nexus 7. Even the low price doesn't help, this should be less than £100 considering what you don't get and so even at this price, it's overpriced.

The CPU is an ARM A8, single core, running at 1.0 to 1.2 GHz (no firm data on this one). It's by far the slowest on any modern tablet. The tablet gets 4,012 in SunSpider, while the Nexus 7 chimes in with 1,780 - Lower is better. For the record, Apple's iPad4 on the latest iOS6 as I type this gets 1,830.

A screen, in fact, which deserves its own paragraph. My three year old (late 2010 release) ZTE Blade has the same screen dimensions in 3.5 inches. Being four times the area, the Kurio 7's screen looks four times coarser. Everything looks blurred and fuzzy, colour reproduction is poor and the screen is one of those hideous TN things that has a viewing angle of about six degrees. Even the 9 year old who owns the review sample pointed out that it looks blurry and asked if it needed focusing. Kids like to share, but there's no sharing the Kurio7 - A friend sat next to anyone holding the tablet probably won't see the screen very well.

Okay, so not many pixels on screen, an ARM A8 which is designed to be power frugal and only one of them, surely the battery will last all week? Well... Not exactly. Four hours playing 720p video and three hours of Angry Birds Space. The Nexus 7 managed seven hours doing the video, and I got bored waiting for it to die in Angry Birds Space after nine and half hours it still had a quarter of its battery to go.

The included charger is mini-USB opposed to micro-USB and quite flimsy, so when it does break, a phone charger can't stand in for it like, oh, every other tablet here other than Apple's proprietary connector.

This isn't designed for kids, it's designed to insult and restrict their imagination. PC Advisor, a site which normally looks for the best case, even niche cases, and gives good reviews for most things soundly panned it.Hardware:CPU: 1.2 GHz ARM A8 with 1 GBScreen: 800x480Storage: 4 GBWeight: 352gPrice: £129

RATING: 0/5 (MAJOR flaws in ALL AREAS) - Would have been 1/5 but the first attempt was blank white screen. Try explaining to a 9 year old on Christmas Day that their main present was dead on arrival.

CONCLUSION

If you want a 7" tablet today, you want a Nexus 7. While the other contender, the iPad Mini, is certainly a good tablet, it's not the best tablet.

However, if you have a spot of platform lock-in thanks to purchased apps on iOS, you may wish to go second best, as the lower price of the Nexus 7 may be a false economy if you have to go buy everything all over again.

Either is a solid choice, but with the iPad feeling that bit flimsy and pricing itself out of the market, as well as being three years out of date, the Nexus 7 takes it.

Nice reviews, Hat. Thanks for sharing. It's a pity for me because I have a bunch of B&N gift cards, and I was strongly considering using them to purchase a Nook HD+. At this point, I'm waiting to see how far the modding community at XDA gets with it. There are some guides to rooting it, sideloading apps, and CM 10.1 is in it's infancy for the device.

Nice reviews, Hat. Thanks for sharing. It's a pity for me because I have a bunch of B&N gift cards, and I was strongly considering using them to purchase a Nook HD+.

Sell them on the Agora, eBay, Plastic Jungle, Card Pool, etc. The Agora or eBay is probably your best bet, getting a minimum of 75% out of it. Card Pool's rates on B&N are terrible at only a 53% buy back.

[edit]That's incorrect. Card Pool is @ 78%, or 82% if you are willing to take it in form of an Amazon card. Plastic Jungle is at 53%.

Can't agree at all with you regarding the build quality issues between the Nexus7 and the iPad Mini. The Nexus7 has nice hardware and a lovely screen contained inside a complete piece of shit casing, which also feels like a piece of shit. The Mini, in comparison, feels considerably sturdier, and while it has an aluminium casing, remains incredibly light and easy to hold. There are also more than one or two people complaining about exactly such build & longevity issues in the Nexus7 thread - dead screens, charging issues and whatnot.

I bought a Mini over the Nexus7 for mainly these reasons; there's no question Android is the better OS, but at least on the Nexus7, the implementation leaves much to be desired. IMHO, it looks, and feels, like a complete POS that simply won't last - I suspect a large part of the N7's low price. The alternative, however, is going with something like a Samsung Tab (possibly including their new rumoured 8" phone - and yes, you read that right - an 8" phone), and dealing with Samsung's legendarily shit update cycle.

Nice reviews, Hat. Thanks for sharing. It's a pity for me because I have a bunch of B&N gift cards, and I was strongly considering using them to purchase a Nook HD+. At this point, I'm waiting to see how far the modding community at XDA gets with it. There are some guides to rooting it, sideloading apps, and CM 10.1 is in it's infancy for the device.

I've rooted several Kindle Fires and put CM10 on them. The nook looks like a much better candidate to do this on with the better resolution screen and SD card slot. Once you get CM10 on the Fire it becomes a totally different and useful tablet only restricted by it's anemic storage.

I have the Nexus7 and a rarely mentioned feature is it's built in GPS chip, even on the WiFi only versions. Google Maps/Navigation on a 7" screen is very nice!

Very nice, appreciate the write up. Wondering if you'll be adding anything about Archos tablets? Is it cos they is French? I think they fall in between kindle fire / nook and ipad mini for price and performance.

I bought a Nexus 7 back in November, because I honestly felt that it looked like the first great Android tablet. And while it was a decent enough experience, I did replace it with an iPad mini about a week ago. The reasons?

1) Build quality. The screen is great and the hardware is zippy enough to make Android feel smooth, but all the parts are apparently assembled by drunken chimps. I first got a dud that had the screenlift issue and almost came apart in the seams (I wish I was overexaggerating, but there was like a 2mm gap between the screen and the casing on the left side). This is apparently a rather widespread issue, since my replacement also had screenlift, albeit minor. The final one didn't have the problem, but I could feel that it would at some point happen since the left side didn't feel properly glued together. The devices weren't from the same batches, by the way. I checked.

The rest of the case felt solid, but it did creak at times and it certainly felt like a $199 computing device. The iPad mini on the other hand is really solid and yes, it does feel more fragile (because it's glass and metal and not glass and plastic which does make a difference in that department).

2) Screen ratio. I wish that manufacturers would get it through their heads: 16:9 is great for movies and shit for pretty much everything else. Stop trying to use 16:9 and go 4:3. It's better for browsing, for reading and for general app use. The Nexus 7 has a great screen, but it's 16:9 and that's just a bad idea.

3) Software. Android is clearly going to be the better OS in the long run if iOS continues to stagnate, but let's be honest here: Google took the same route as Apple and just slapped the phone layout on a larger screen, but failed to do the crucial thing and force app developers to actually develop tablet apps. Some of this is improving. A lot of it isn't. Because why should devs care about the tablet look when their app developed for a 720p phone screen will render flawlessly on a larger 1280x800 screen? The actual tablet experience is miles better on the iPad once you actually start using apps instead of staring at the great OS underneath it and until this changes completely, the Android tablets are going to feel inferior. Other parts of the OS experience also needs more polish, like Chrome having problems with text rendering in certain zoom stages and the button placement in landscape being retarded. The home button does not need to drop to the bottom of the screen, Google. It can stay on the side in landscape, trust me.

Maybe they'll get it right on the software side with Android 5.0 and realise that they need to force devs to develop apps intended for larger screens (maybe 7"+ could be called "the tablet experience" and your app can't go on a tablet unless you follow the rules). And maybe they'll realise that the Nexus 8 could actually be 7.8" in 4:3.

I like them both and on the phone side, I'm definitely keeping the Nexus 4 if my replacement doesn't have heat problems. But as for tablets, they still need to work out some of the kinks.

Lots of "basic" android tablets employ 1024 x 600, or 1280 x 800 screens. 1280 x 720 is a middling resolution for android phones now - engadget just did a write up for the Pantech Discover, a $50 on contract ICS 4.0.4 handset with a 4.8" 720p screen. http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/19/pant ... er-review/

I think the problem is that the android phone layout is pretty much going to be the tablet layout for the foreseeable future. I don't see every android tablet manufacturer out there all agreeing to release 1080p tablets only.

I think the problem is that the android phone layout is pretty much going to be the tablet layout for the foreseeable future. I don't see every android tablet manufacturer out there all agreeing to release 1080p tablets only.

Android apps are written for screen sizes, not screen resolutions. If every tablet used 1080p or 320p it wouldn't change anything. You'd still have to add a different screen layout to each app for different screen sizes. If you don't, your phone UI gets rendered at 1080p, 720p ... 320p.

I think the problem is that the android phone layout is pretty much going to be the tablet layout for the foreseeable future. I don't see every android tablet manufacturer out there all agreeing to release 1080p tablets only.

Android apps are written for screen sizes, not screen resolutions. If every tablet used 1080p or 320p it wouldn't change anything. You'd still have to add a different screen layout to each app for different screen sizes. If you don't, your phone UI gets rendered at 1080p, 720p ... 320p.

"The reason designing for 7" tablets is tricky when using the generalized size groups is that a 7" tablet is technically in the same group as a 5" handset (the large group). While these two devices are seemingly close to each other in size, the amount of space for an application's UI is significantly different, as is the style of user interaction. Thus, a 7" and 5" screen should not always use the same layout."

The trend appears to be premium Android phones moving to >5" screens, 1080p and even "retina", what would that do to the 7" Android tablet market?

I don't know how you can say the iPad mini feels fragile. It's really solid, despite weighing next to nothing. Aluminum automatically doesn't mean it will dent easily. Maybe true of pre unibody Macs, but all iPads are unibody. I throw around my iPad mini everywhere, and I don't use a case. Absolutely no scratches and certainly no dents, except for one tiny ding on the only part that isn't aluminum, which is the chrome bezel. Even the chrome apple logo has held up with no scratches, which is a surprise because that part of apple's designs have been a traditional weak point with respect to scratches.

I agree on the point about 16:9. Completely useless in landscape orientation, or anything other than movies for that matter. won't comment on android tablet apps, as the last android tablet I owned was a first gen transformer.

2) Screen ratio. I wish that manufacturers would get it through their heads: 16:9 is great for movies and shit for pretty much everything else. Stop trying to use 16:9 and go 4:3. It's better for browsing, for reading and for general app use. The Nexus 7 has a great screen, but it's 16:9 and that's just a bad idea.

Minor nitpick but the N7 has a 16:10 ratio screen. I prefer this ratio to 4:3 because if I want to watch video on my N7 it fills the screen better and I can watch 720p content without scaling it. I don't have any particular issues with browsing in 16:10.

2) There are some apps that you simply can't get on iOS (emulators, terminal, etc)

3) Pretty nice performance

Nexus 7" Cons1) Charging is anemic and it won't last a week on standby, plug it in when drained and the system tries to boot and fails as there is not enough power to run (even when plugged in). You have to wait until there is a minimal level of charge on the tablet before using - at least this has been my experience

2) microUSB connector - yes, I know it's a standard, but the damn thing is flimsy. My nexus won't charge unless there is pressure against the cable (I think the connector inside is loose).

3) Apps (although this has improved recently IME) - most are obviously not made for the tablet, which makes for a sub-par experience

4) IME 16:9 is not tablet optimal

iPad mini Pros1) Lightning connector (that is if you can get pas the expense changing all your cables and have a proprietary connector). Sturdy and very ease to connect.

2) Apps: IME, the apps on iOS simply have a higher level of polish and there are niche areas where the selection of apps on iOS is significantly greater than Android (Home automation in particular).

3) Build quality

iPad mini Cons1) Won't fit in my coat pockets except without a case

2) Auto brightness (this seems to only happen on the mini) always wants to max out - had to turn this off

I will caveat these comments with the fact that I feel I'm slightly biased toward iOS, but I have invested in tablets from all major ecosystems because I want to be better informed and have actual experience to compare against (I have a Win8 Atom tablet too, but have not used it enough to offer up a good opinion)

2) Auto brightness (this seems to only happen on the mini) always wants to max out - had to turn this off

Have you considered this is a hardware fault?

<nit-pick>I actually like and prefer how iOS does auto brightness(it takes an initial brightness reading when you unlock the device, then actively bump up the brightness as the light sensor detects more light as conditions change. It *never* goes back down unless you turn it off and back on in a dim environment).

Anytime I've used a device that auto-dims (playbook, touchpad, nexus 7, various non iOS phones), it'll auto dim because I had my hand over the light sensor or it's in the shadow of my hand, etc..., and it'll dim unnecessarily. Considering how often your hands are on the bezel of the device, this is a frustration that's a daily occurrence. This is way more frustrating than the odd time having the device too bright in a dim environment (the only downside to this is reduced battery life but it's a drop in the bucket for Apple devices).

<on topic>When it comes to 7" tablets, it really comes down to ecosystem again IMO. I'm an iOS guy but I still prefer the iPad mini. without going into the merits of the "ecosystem" arguement, this is why:

Apple really made a good point about the usable screen space on the nexus 7 vs. the ipad mini. Sure the nexus 7 has a higher resolution screen, but having that damn home bar takes up so much space when in landscape mode is such a waste. then in portrait mode, the width of the screen ends up being quite limited

Also, the inclusion of a back camera makes video calling much better cause most of the time, I'm showing someone what I'm seeing (kids playing or whatever) vs. my ugly mug.

Specs wise, yes, the nexus 7 is better than the iPad mini, but in day to day use, they're essentially the same. Apps boot super quick and screen response is fast.

Multi-finger gestures. I *love* pinching to get to the home screen, swiping the switch apps, and pushing up to open the multi-task tray. I also love the side switch to quick rotation lock (or mute if you prefer).

I do admit though that multi-user accounts on jelly bean is pretty awesome. I wish iOS had that.

Does all of this justify the addition cost? (cause it always comes down to that). In my opinion, $200 vs $330... looking at the percentages, it's hard to justify a 60% markup. But in dollars, if you're already shelling out cash for a "tablet", the $130 is worth it but I'd still wait for the retina mini though.

Yes, but the fact of the matter is that there is obviously a quality control issue with the Nexus 7. It's great that they could build most of the tablets without any issues, but there's also the issue of there literally being thousands of users suffering from a quality problem. A problem that still persists six months into the product's life cycle - the Nexus 7 was launched in July, I bought mine in November and the issue was still there. A quick Google search will show you that people buying these things in January still have the issue and Google and ASUS are just replacing them without asking any questions.

Couldn't disagree more on the Nexus 7 build quality comments. While I feel bad for those that got duds, ours is absolutely perfect.

The ones I played with in shops were "perfect" too - as in, no defects, worked fine. That unfortunately doesn't stop them looking and feeling like plastic crapola next to an iPad Mini. I dunno what the hell that stuff is Asus put on the back casing of the N7, but it feels like they chose the cheapest option they had out of whatever choices they examined. While £170 or so isn't going to put me over any financial red lines, I just couldn't quite bring myself to justify buying one over the Mini.

The Mini isn't without its flaws either - the screen is noticeably "not great" compared to my GS3's - but it's entirely adequate for the uses I have for it, and better still, the fact that it's an actual iPad means it'll probably retain its value better when I eventually get rid of it. I reckon it's also likely to stay working for considerably longer than the N7 will.

i. I dunno what the hell that stuff is Asus put on the back casing of the N7, but it feels like they chose the cheapest option they had out of whatever choices they examined

No, the Nexus 10 rear material is even cheaper.

That said for $200 I would happily buy the Nexus 7 any day over the iPad Mini, at least in my household-- mostly 'cause we have zero stake in iOS at the moment. For friends who are already invested in iOS, the iPad Mini gets a great deal more consideration.

I don't have an investment in iOS either - I've truly only encountered one mobile app ever I'd be willing to pay for. The Mini basically struck me as a quality piece of kit which would do what I wanted it to, and it's the first piece of Apple tech I've ever bought.

My nexus 7 has been perfect hardware wise, though the reports of flawed units have caused me to recommend it with caveats, mainly to buy it from a local store so it's easy to return in case of any manufacturing defects. It's still the best deal you're going to get for around $200.

Couldn't disagree more on the Nexus 7 build quality comments. While I feel bad for those that got duds, ours is absolutely perfect.

The ones I played with in shops were "perfect" too - as in, no defects, worked fine. That unfortunately doesn't stop them looking and feeling like plastic crapola next to an iPad Mini. I dunno what the hell that stuff is Asus put on the back casing of the N7, but it feels like they chose the cheapest option they had out of whatever choices they examined. While £170 or so isn't going to put me over any financial red lines, I just couldn't quite bring myself to justify buying one over the Mini.

The Mini isn't without its flaws either - the screen is noticeably "not great" compared to my GS3's - but it's entirely adequate for the uses I have for it, and better still, the fact that it's an actual iPad means it'll probably retain its value better when I eventually get rid of it. I reckon it's also likely to stay working for considerably longer than the N7 will.

Nice reviews, Hat. Thanks for sharing. It's a pity for me because I have a bunch of B&N gift cards, and I was strongly considering using them to purchase a Nook HD+. At this point, I'm waiting to see how far the modding community at XDA gets with it. There are some guides to rooting it, sideloading apps, and CM 10.1 is in it's infancy for the device.

Go try one for your self before you decide.

My experience with the Nook HD has been so completely different than Hat's that I'm almost certain he had a defective unit. Also, I think his ratings are too influenced by what he wants the devices to do, rather than what they're marketed as doing. There is no way in hell the Nook HD is inferior to the Kindle Fire HD, save for the smaller app store. For me, I don't really want my tablet to do most of what has him clearly enamored with the Nexus 7. It should do what I tell it to, when I tell it to, and nothing more.

We test various tablets @ work to make sure the apps we offer in our BYOD program work on them, and to get an idea of which ones we would recommend when users ask.

The display is easily better than the other tablets, and is a joy to read or watch on. I can also use it while wearing polarized sunglasses, something that just doesn't work with the iPad Mini, Fire HD or Nexus 7.The removable storage is for me, another aspect that sets the Nook apart from the other tablets out there.

The responsiveness for me was on par or better than the Nexus 7 before it got Jellybean, which does not feel good in the hand to me. With Jellybean, the Nexus does feel faster overall, but it is not leaps and bounds faster when I'm reading and flipping pages.

The Fire HD is physically not much different in the hand than the Fire, which is just a slightly tweaked Blackberry Playbook. Also, AFAICT still has the ludicrous $15 fee to free you from ads on a device you've already purchased.

The Nook HD, along with the iPad Mini are remarkably light. So far, I haven't found anyone that can tell the slight weight difference between the two without a scale or looking it up. Fits nicely in my pants or coat pockets (the mini less so). The B&N app store is limited, but it has steadily improved since it started.The main nitpick I've got with it is the way it fails to handle user loaded wallpaper properly. On my Nook Color, you pick the wallpaper it puts it on the main screen and that's it. With the HD, it crops it so it can show a section of the picture as you scroll trough the main screens. I want a full screen image that doesn't rotate. The wallpaper I want to use works fine in portrait or landscape.

The Mini is a nice device, and the low res screen is frankly a smart move by apple to grab peoples money and still offer their full app store. I do expect much grousing and selling off of minis when they release a retina version in a few months. It still has all the things I don't like about iOS in it, which some probably think are the best things since air, but are enough of a turn off for me that I wouldn't spend my own money on one.Still it is an iPad that I would actually not mind carrying around for more than 5 minutes, so it's way ahead of the standard models already.

Regarding the feel of the mini, it does feel more fragile in the hand than the other tablets, although after a bit of time I realized that's mainly due to the drastic weight reduction versus everything but the Nook HD, and the device being so much more expensive that it has a psychological effect of making you more worried about breaking it. When you take a mental step back, you realize it's constructed well enough that the concern should be about equal for all of them.

Thanks for responding, PsychoStreak. I have tried both the Nook HD and HD+ and I quite like them. I'm actually cosidering getting the HD+.

If I get one, I would definitely root so that I could get access to GApps and Play Store. Thus I ask myself, is it worth spending a little more to get a tablet that doesn't need to be hacked to get the full-fledged Android experience?

Maybe they'll get it right on the software side with Android 5.0 and realise that they need to force devs to develop apps intended for larger screens (maybe 7"+ could be called "the tablet experience" and your app can't go on a tablet unless you follow the rules). And maybe they'll realise that the Nexus 8 could actually be 7.8" in 4:3.

Yes!. This is a strong point many just missed until they start using the Mini and realised that , hey, this is close to perfect. Web browsing or otherwise. Apple's crop/resizing when viewing movies is also very good such that it becomes a better experience surprisingly.I passed the Nexus 7 for lack of back camera and good 720p video capture which the Mini does pretty well considering its mediocre specs.The screen is pretty great for a 4:3 7.85 size and overall light weight is certain a strong point for long duration usage. If it gets jailbroken, the Mini will do things we really want with fewer compromises. I was skeptical from the start but convinced after using it.

Thanks for responding, PsychoStreak. I have tried both the Nook HD and HD+ and I quite like them. I'm actually cosidering getting the HD+.

If I get one, I would definitely root so that I could get access to GApps and Play Store. Thus I ask myself, is it worth spending a little more to get a tablet that doesn't need to be hacked to get the full-fledged Android experience?

I had a rooted Nook Color and I still own a rooted Nook Tablet. I love them both for reading, flipboard and the size. That being said, I wanted a Nook HD+ because I like the size. Then I asked myself the same question you did. The answer is "no." No, I dont want a hacked up tablet. Nor do I want CM10 on a device that may or may not have issues with sound, wifi, accelerated graphics, etc. So I bought a Note 10.1. Works perfect, and I have the Nook app.

However, if you have a spot of platform lock-in thanks to purchased apps on iOS, you may wish to go second best, as the lower price of the Nexus 7 may be a false economy if you have to go buy everything all over again.

QFT.

When I decided I wanted to finally start playing with a tablet, even though the house is pretty well saturated with Apple hardware, I went with a Nexus 7, and it showed up not long ago. This was a pretty good solution for me: Note I said I wanted to start _playing with_ a tablet, not _using_ a tablet. Now, the app purchasing thing, that wasn't a huge deal, as most of what I've got on my iPhone was free or stuff I don't care if it's on the tablet or not. The rest of the ecosystem's been a pain in the butt, between having everything in my world already set up to work with Apple and just the differences in mindset.

I should note again: this is exactly the sort of thing I was looking forward to sorting out when I bought the Nexus 7. But it's not the sort of thing you want to deal with if you're actually looking for productivity.

As an example: If you're already bought into the Apple ecosystem, imagine you have a video on your Mac and you want it on your new iPad Mini. You plug the Mini in with the supplied Lightning cable, iTunes launches, you tell iTunes to sync it over. You've already got all this stuff because it works just like your phone does. If it's something you downloaded from iTMS (a purchase, a downloadable-video-with-dvd, whatever) with DRM on it, you don't care. Twenty minutes later, you're at the gym watching an episode of Babylon 5 on your shiny new toy as you grind out some cardio on the elliptical. Or wherever else it was you weren't likely to be able to stream your video.

But imagine you decided to save a few bucks and buy a Nexus: Well, first I re-crunched the video from the original DVD using Handbrake-- while I'm not certain this step was required, I did recall there were Android pre-sets in Handbrake. I haven't yet tried copying over something that plays on my AppleTV or iPhone without re-crunching yet. And if it's something that's DRM'd, just stop here: You're in the wrong ecosystem for that.

However you get your video, now you want it on the device. Well, that's easy, right? The thing's got a Micro-USB-B socket on it, so we'll just plug it into the Mac.

Nope. First you have to put the thing in Developer mode. And then, well, if the device were running an older version of Android, you'd be done. Except we're not. In a recent version, Google decided presenting the on-board storage as a USB disk wasn't a good idea, so they switched to Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol. (At this point, I thought, "Microsoft? Well, I keep around an XP virtual machine to deal with all the stupid web stuff my idiot employers keep around that requires IE6, I'll just plug it into _that_. Nope, MTP's too new, XP doesn't speak it.) Aha! Google's got a Mac MTP widget. Doesn't play well with Avast!'s antivirus, so I had to turn that off, but it does work.

I haven't yet figured out which tools I need to actually make metadata show up correctly, or if I can get the Nexus 7 to, say, sort episodes of TV shows by any order other than alphabetical. I expect it's there, and I'm looking forward to finding it over the next few weeks as I get more time to play.

Now, if you don't already have your world built around a mobile platform? It's a slick little machine. I don't give it quite as high marks as Hat does on how smoothly it operates; often I ask it to do something and then wind up with something I didn't mean to ask for as I go click on it again thinking it didn't take the first time. While it's got the best resolution in its class, the pixel whore in me still wants more-- but aside from those two things I think Hat's dead on. Being a Google-branded device, it doesn't ship with piles of crapware, which is a huge plus. I also have high hopes that as newer releases of Android ship, they'll show up near-instantly on my device, as opposed to waiting for a third party manufacturer to get around to releasing it.

But imagine you decided to save a few bucks and buy a Nexus: Well, first I re-crunched the video from the original DVD using Handbrake-- while I'm not certain this step was required, I did recall there were Android pre-sets in Handbrake. I haven't yet tried copying over something that plays on my AppleTV or iPhone without re-crunching yet. And if it's something that's DRM'd, just stop here: You're in the wrong ecosystem for that.

However you get your video, now you want it on the device. Well, that's easy, right? The thing's got a Micro-USB-B socket on it, so we'll just plug it into the Mac.

Nope. First you have to put the thing in Developer mode. And then, well, if the device were running an older version of Android, you'd be done. Except we're not. In a recent version, Google decided presenting the on-board storage as a USB disk wasn't a good idea, so they switched to Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol. (At this point, I thought, "Microsoft? Well, I keep around an XP virtual machine to deal with all the stupid web stuff my idiot employers keep around that requires IE6, I'll just plug it into _that_. Nope, MTP's too new, XP doesn't speak it.) Aha! Google's got a Mac MTP widget. Doesn't play well with Avast!'s antivirus, so I had to turn that off, but it does work.

Strangely I had a far easier time getting video onto the iPad Mini from a PC. Ran it through Handbrake to re-encode to MP4, used iTunes to add it to the the library. Done.

And then, well, if the device were running an older version of Android, you'd be done. Except we're not. In a recent version, Google decided presenting the on-board storage as a USB disk wasn't a good idea, so they switched to Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol. (At this point, I thought, "Microsoft? Well, I keep around an XP virtual machine to deal with all the stupid web stuff my idiot employers keep around that requires IE6, I'll just plug it into _that_. Nope, MTP's too new, XP doesn't speak it.)

XP works fine with MTP if you've been keeping up on Windows update. If you haven't, well you're running a 10+ year old operating system that you haven't updated. Be glad it even supports USB.